


What happens when you flirt with Captain America

by Kyss_31



Series: Stony [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Explicit Language, Flirting, M/M, Male Homosexuality, NSFW, Non-sequitur, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyss_31/pseuds/Kyss_31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony loves messing with his team leader.  When he tries a new method of getting a rise out of Steve, he gets more than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Tactic

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the months following the 2012 "Avengers" film.

Manhattan had been fairly quiet in the months after the newly formed Avengers defeated Loki’s army of Chitauri.  Well, quiet except for the constant reconstruction on nearly every building in the downtown area.  Some had to be demolished after the shakes to their foundations, and weekends often meant that the ground around Stark Tower rattled from the force of demolitions happening in the neighboring blocks.  Or it was shaking because the Hulk was practicing on changing between his two forms as quickly as he could, which always resulted in the smashing of discarded equipment in the labs that filled the basements of Stark Tower.

The Helicarrier was still under repair, so the new Avenger’s team and their S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives had congregated in the spacious skyscraper, which had somehow only required a minimal amount of repairs, despite being the epicenter of the battle with the alien army.  There were numerous empty apartments - enough for each Avenger and agent - as well as gyms, spare labs, spacious common rooms, and a number of floors that Tony Stark had never figured out what to do with and had left empty.  These were quickly made into a command center and specialized training spaces where the Avenger’s could hone their specific skills.

Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton could often be found in one of these newly designed rooms, preparing to turn this thrown-together set of heros into an actual team.  Bruce Banner was more often in the basements, away from the others, attempting to prove to himself that he could be a valuable member of the team, even when in the form of the Hulk.  He had been surprised how easily his other form had taken orders from Captain America during the battle on the streets, but he couldn’t risk that the next time they needed him, he would attack his team instead.  He would spend hours in the empty labs, writing commands on the walls (“SMASH ORANGE CAR”) and waking to see what level of devastation the Hulk had left for him.  Maybe it was just that the Hulk was finally being accepted and talked to like a sentient being, but Bruce was finding his other half to be more and more compliant with each day.

Even Thor had returned from Asgard to lend his knowledge of off-world creatures and help develop tactics should something like Loki’s attempt at world domination happen again.

The only person who didn’t avail himself of all the new toys in the Stark Tower was Tony Stark himself.  He never went to visit the command center, despite the number of times Steve ordered him in for a team meeting.  He didn’t bother checking out the new gyms, convinced that his Iron Man workshop was sufficient for testing his skills.  Even though Steve told him he needed to practicing alongside the others, to work out how they could best fight as a team, Tony insisted that their success against the Chitauri was proof enough that they worked as a team and they could leave it at that.  Instead of joining Steve’s mandatory practice sessions, he would disappear into his labs to work on projects for Stark Enterprises or his Iron Man armor, or whatever whim had entered his mind in the middle of the night.

Luckily Pepper Potts was handling the business side of SE for a while.  She and Tony were off again, and so she decided to move out to their DC headquarters for a few months and run things from there.  Tony was sorry to see her step out of his life again, but he wasn’t heartbroken enough to try to stop her.  She was sweet, and kind, and just a little sassy.  But after being together as a couple, Tony was missing the heat and intensity he’d experienced with other partners and knew wasn’t really a part of Pepper’s personality.  Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.  So Tony let her leave him, and he went back to his labs.

It was Tony’s labs that Steve would look for their host in residence, whenever Tony failed to attend a team meeting or training session.  Steve would find the dark-haired genius either hunched over a workbench, goggles and gloves in place, a soldering iron in one hand and a fragile piece of circuitry in the other, or half hidden beneath a large piece of an engine for something-or-other, half coated in oil, with a pencil between his teeth.

“Let me guess,” Steve would often say as his eyes landed on the engineer, “you lost track of time and forgot you were supposed to meet us upstairs.”

“Nope,” Tony would always respond honestly.  “Just had something better to do.”

For the first two months after moving into Stark Towers, Steve tried every tactic he could think of to get Tony to realize that team building was the most important thing for them to be doing right now.  He tried lectures, but they just made Tony roll his eyes and turn on some loud piece of equipment to drown Steve out.  Steve then tried appealing to his rational side, calmly explaining how team dynamics were just as important as tactics.

“Well, I’m the most dynamic member of the team, so I guess I’m all set there,” had been Tony’s snarky reply.

Steve had considered playing into Tony’s ego and telling him that the team needed him, but couldn’t bring himself to say it.  While it was true that the team did need Iron Man - his flight ability was excellent for recon and transporting another team member quickly into position, and his repulsor beams were one of their most effective weapons for both offensive and defensive positions due to their varied settings.  

But Steve couldn’t stand the idea of stroking the ego of someone who was clearly already full of themselves.  He believed that Tony should want to work with the team for the sake of the team and not himself.  But as he entered his third month of leading the team, he began to lose hope that this would ever happen, and that started to piss him off.  It was during this time that he reverted back to the tactic he had tried on Tony when they met on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier - getting in Tony’s face and yelling at him to do what he was told.

Of course, this met with just as little success as it had when Steve first tried it, but it allowed the supersoldier to let off some of the stress that built up whenever he found himself around the snarky genius.

While Steve spent so much time trying to figure out ways to get Tony to work with them, Tony was trying to think of different ways to mess with the head of his fearless leader.  Nothing seemed to make him as happy as seeing Steve Rogers flustered and stammering for words, his hands wildly swinging around in search of either something to demonstrate his point or hit Tony with - Tony wasn’t really sure which.  But infuriating Steve gave Tony a thrill greater than anything else - greater even than fixing the arc reactor and knowing he wasn’t about to keel over dead at a moment’s notice.

Steve yelling in Tony’s face became Tony’s favorite part of his day, and ensured that he would never attend an Avenger meeting by his own free will.  But in order to keep Steve coming back and getting just as angry each time, Tony had to come up with new retorts.  There’s only so many times one can be indignant before others stop trying to work with you.  So Tony played with being sarcastic, witty, childish, sassy, and even charming.

He heard the woosh of his lab doors opening and smirked behind his welding mask.  Right on time, he thought.

Steve marched up behind Tony, his hands already on his hips and ready for the fight he knew was sure to come.

“What’s your excuse this time, Stark?” he said, his voice already on the edge of exasperation.

Tony pursed his lips together.  An exasperated Steve usually meant a quick fight, and then Tony would be ignored for the rest of the day.  It was time to pull out a new tactic, or Steve would start considering giving up their daily spat, Tony was sure of it.  He wasn’t sure why that seemed like such a horrible thing.  It wasn’t like he enjoyed getting yelled at by anyone else.  But with Steve, it was always fun.

“No excuse,” said Tony, not looking up from his tig welder.  He wondered what techniques he hadn’t tried yet - besides just telling Steve the truth of course.

When Steve didn’t respond, Tony got curious and looked up.  Steve was leaning against the table, arms crossed over his enhanced pecs, and a glare on his chiseled face.  He was staring directly at Tony’s face, his blue eyes unblinking.  It was an eerie enough site that Tony actually turned off his welder and straightened up.  He took a moment to decide on a course of action before flipping up his welding helmet and flashing Steve his most charming smile.

“What’s the matter, Cap?” he said slowly, peering up at the taller man from behind dark eyelashes.  “You’re looking a little tense.  Anything I can do to help -” he paused, taking a step closer “- relieve that tension?”

Steve growled and ground his teeth, his glare growing in intensity.

“Honestly, Cap,” said Tony, easily hiding the joy he felt at seeing the reaction due to months of practice, “you look like you could use a break.”  He took another step closer.  “Maybe the stress of the job is catching up with you.”

“Right,” Steve snarled, “I’m not fit for the job.  We’re going to have that discussion, again?”

Tony flashed him a dazzling white smile - the kind he usually only pulled out at charity events when he was bored and trying to get someone to hit on him.

“I don’t remember it be a discussion,” said Tony, “so much as another chance for you to thump your chest.”  Tony directed his eyes quite pointedly at Steve’s pecs.  “By the way, your workouts are really paying off,” he added. He took off one of his welding gloves and gently prodded the bulging muscles barely concealed by Steve’s workout shirt.  “You’ve got great definition.”

“But nothing that compares to your metal suit, right?” said Steve, remembering the jibes Tony had thrown at him the last time he’d questioned Steve’s authority.

Tony actually had no issues with Steve as a leader.  The Captain had proven to be strategically savvy, compassionate towards those they were rescuing, and protective of his team.  Tony found himself trusting Steve’s commands when they were in the field, and he knew himself well enough to know that he would never make a good commander - he was too reckless and got caught up in what was right in front of him and forgot to look around the corner for what was coming next.  Captain always looked around the corners, and he never forgot that he had an entire team to direct.  Tony didn’t have a problem with Steve as their leader, but he loved letting Steve think he did.

Tony gave a one shouldered shrug and hid his eyes behind his lashes once more.  “You have to admit, I look good in the suit.”

Steve dropped his arms and closed what was left of the gap between them, stopping just shy of bumping up against the considerably less muscled man.  “Why don’t you put on the suit and we’ll go a few rounds?” he gruffed out, looming over Tony despite the fact he was barely an inch taller than the cyborg.

Tony kept his eyes down and his smile in place.  “Oh, Captain,” he nearly purred, “I don’t need the suit to take you on, big boy.”  He leaned forward so that the edges of the arc reactor just touched Steve’s chest.  He slowly raised his eyes to see what reaction his flirting was getting.  What he saw nearly cracked his composure.

Steve had gone as red as his uniform gloves.  His eyes were wide and confused, scanning every millimeter of Tony’s face, looking for an explanation as to this turn of events.  His breathing hitched, causing his chest to press more firmly against the glowing piece of tech that just protruded from Tony’s sternum.

Tony’s smile warmed and he leaned in further, pushing himself up on his toes.

“Has anyone ever told you, Captain,” he said in little more than a whisper, “that you look quite fetching in red?”  He gently laid his ungloved hand on Steve’s bicep, feeling the enhanced muscles tingle beneath his touch.

Steve suddenly blinked and stumbled back several steps, his eyes blown wide and pupils fully dilated.

Tony felt a twinge of regret at seeing Steve so shaken.  Maybe I pushed it too far.  The thought didn’t feel like the source of the unease that started to ripple through his body once Captain America’s radiant heat was no longer coursing over Tony’s slender frame.  Tony wasn’t immediately sure why, but he was very sorry to see how much he’d gotten under his Captain’s skin.  His smile began to falter, and he opened his mouth to say he was sorry, but Steve was already turning around and storming out of the lab.

“Steve, wait!” Tony called as the lab doors opened to allow the Captain to flee.

 ****  
Steve didn’t stop, though.  He couldn’t stop.  He had to get as far away from Tony as he could.


	2. Steve destroys another punching bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve bolts out of Tony's lab. Why is he so distressed that Tony flirted with him? It was only a joke...

“Steve, wait!” Tony called as the lab doors opened to allow the Captain to flee.

 

Steve didn’t stop, though.  He couldn’t stop.  He had to get as far away from Tony as he could.  So he ran up the stairs.  It was 17 floors up to the 26th level which held the new gyms.  He was short of breath when he left Tony’s lab, but the long climb actually helped even it out, bringing down his racing heartbeat as well.

 

It wasn’t until he reached the landing at floor 19 that he was able to think of anything other than just moving in a direction away from Tony.  His head seemed to clear the higher he rose, and he was finally able to think through what had happened in the labs below.

 

He knew Tony had only been teasing him - that's all Tony ever did. Of course it was nothing more than that. But the way Tony had chosen to tease Steve had him concerned. 

 

_ Flirting?  _ Steve thought.   _ Really?  Why did he try to flirt with me? _

 

Tony had done all kinds of things to get a rise out of Steve since the team had moved into the tower - even before, during their first mission together against Loki and the Chitauri.  Steve tried to shake off the tingling in his nerves.  Tony was just trying to mess with him.  He hadn’t meant anything by it….

 

_ But why did he have to  _ flirt  _ with me? _

 

Steve reached the 26th floor and walked into the first gym.  It was quiet.  Clint and Natasha were in the shooting range on the floor above, Bruce was meditating in the gardens on the roof, and Thor was off-world for a little while, so Steve had the gyms to himself.  He quickly gathered a stack of punching bags and had his hands taped up in record time.

 

It wasn’t uncommon for Steve to push himself through a tough workout after his afternoon spats with Tony.  It seemed that the only way to ease the tension that started in his shoulders and legs and crawled into his core was to punch something, repeatedly.  Better a stack of expendable punching bags than his teammate, who also happened to own the building in which they all lived and operated out of, and who had just  _ flirted _ with him.

 

Steve tried to concentrate on the bag in front of him rather than Tony.

 

_ Right.  Left.  Right - right - left - right.  Gut shot _ .

 

But the rhythm was too familiar, and his mind quickly wandered and he found himself thinking about how dark Tony’s eyes looked from beneath his obnoxiously thick lashes.

 

Steve’s next punch landed too far to the left, throwing him off balance and causing the bag to swing wildly on its chain.  He gripped the bag to hold it and himself steady, digging his fingers into the thick canvas and feeling the resistance of the captured sand beneath it.

 

Before he could stop his mind from going any further down the distracting train of thought, he wondered if he should have just done this to Tony downstairs - gripped and pulled him close.

 

No.  Nope.  No.  He was not going to think about that.  Steve let go of the bag and walked several paces away, running a hand over his sweaty face.

 

_ Why did he have to fucking  _ flirt _ with me? _

 

_ Because he’s Tony _ , a new thought cut in.   _ Because he knew it would mess with you and that’s all he wanted to do _ .

 

_ But did he know just how  _ much _ it would mess with me?  Does he know that I...well..? _

 

_ That I what?  Find him attractive?  I bet he doesn’t even know that I prefer men! _

 

_ But what if he does?  What if he does know I’m attracted to him?  _

 

_ Well, it’s not exactly the 1940’s anymore.  Gay is okay, they say so on the internet all time.  The people who don’t agree are made to look rather foolish.  Tony probably wouldn’t care. _

 

_ Maybe not about my sexuality - but he might care that I’m attracted to  _ him _ more than, well, anyone else right now. _

 

Steve sighed.  His internal conversation wasn’t making him feel any better, just more confused.  Did Tony know that Steve was bi?  Did Tony know Steve had a crush on him?  Would Tony care either way?  There was no way for Steve to know the answers to those questions without asking the man himself, and that was just not on the table.  He couldn’t tell Tony why he wanted to know without having to tell him why he’d freaked out in the labs that afternoon.  And he really didn’t want to explain to Tony how the flirting had made Steve want to pin his smarmy ass against his worktable and kiss him senseless.

 

Of course, Steve had to admit, it wasn’t just flirting that had made him want to do that.  It seemed that a lot of their lab fights had inspired images in the mind of the supersoldier of shutting up the sarcastic cyborg with a different kind of tongue lashing.  There were a lot of flat surfaces in that room, too, Steve had noticed on several occasions - surfaces just right for trapping a certain genius know-it-all and making him beg-

 

_ Woah!  Woah! _  Steve shook out his head, followed by the rest of his body, which was thrumming despite the fact he’d only worked out for a total of 6 minutes.  He paced the empty floor of the gym, trying not to catch his reflection in any of the mirrors.  He knew what he would see - pasty skin, flushed from arousal and frustration, blue eyes wide in confusion, blond hair sticking in all directions because he kept pulling at it, muscles too big to be natural -  _ Honestly, I’d probably end up crushing Stark if I ever pinned him to the wall...unless he was wearing the suit. _

 

“Uuugghh!” Steve groaned.  He was not going to have another one of his Iron Man fantasies!  He just wasn’t.  Yes, the suit was impressively powerful.  Yes, it could fly.  Yes, the man inside of it was devilishly handsome and smart enough to back up his boasts and then some.  But he wasn’t going to spend any more time picturing Iron Man picking him up like the spindly child he once was and carry him off to some romantic mountaintop where they would do things that those men he’d rescued from Dahoe could have only dreamed of.  But, of course, that’s all Steve was doing - dreaming.  Dreaming of Iron Man and Tony Stark and hating so much that they were the same person, because it made him all the more irresistible.

 

_ So why do I keep resisting _ , that second voice filtered back in.   _ Technically, he made a move on me. _

 

Steve’s pacing had brought him back around to the punching bag, and as the thought flitted through his head, he let out a snarl and slammed the bag so hard that it flew all the way across the room to the far wall, spilling sand out from two split seams.

 

_ That’s _ what was making him so mad, he realized.   _ He made a move on me and he didn’t even mean it.  I thought, for just a second, that he might actually want me - maybe even as much as I want him - but it was just a joke.  It was all a joke. _

 

Steve stood in the middle of the room, chest heaving, arms tensed, and glared at the sand still dribbling to the floor from the ruined bag.

 

Damn Tony and his need to mess with everyone.

 

_ Well not me, not anymore. _  Steve turned his back on the punching bag and stalked out of the room.   _ I’m done with him. _


	3. I Fucked Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony realizes he crossed a line with Steve and tries to find him so he can apologize.

Fuck, fuck, fuck-ity fuck-fuck. The word repeats itself over and over in Tony’s mind. It’s his new mantra as he rides the elevator down to the command floors.

What had he been thinking? He had flirted with Steve! Why did he do that? Why did he think that would be a good idea?

Fuck, fuck, double-fuck. Shit, I fucked up.

This is not what he had wanted to happen. The look on Steve’s face before he fled from the lab seems to be burned into Tony’s eyes. He was horrified. I actually made him horrified. Tony threw himself through the elevator doors sideways as they began to open. He ran into the Avenger’s headquarters, looking around for Steve. He had to apologize. He had to say he was sorry. He had to say something to his team leader, before this could get any worse.

Steve wasn’t in any of the command rooms on floors 5-10. Nor was he in the team’s lounge on the 24th floor. Nor was he in his suite on the 16th floor. Tony slammed his fist against the elevator call button once more and wracked his genius brain for an idea of where Steve might be. Jarvis had confirmed that their fearless leader was still in the building, but was obstinately refusing to tell Tony where in the building he was hiding. So it was up to Tony to figure it out for himself.

Think, genius! Tony chastised himself. What does Cap do to chill out?....besides yelling at me? The elevator opened and Tony jumped in, then stood stalk still in the middle, staring at the back wall.

“Destination, sir?” came Jarvis’s voice from the ceiling.

“I don't know,” Tony whispered. “I don't know anything about him.” Tony wracked his brain for any snippet of conversation he’d overheard between the teammates during downtime. Had Steve ever said something about what he liked to do? 

He was always talking with the others - team building or whatever. He and Clint seemed to be pretty close, and Natasha was usually hanging off of one or the other. One of the assassins was bound to know. Of course, neither of them liked Tony in the slightest and were unlikely to help.

Bruce was the only one Tony ever socialized with - if chatting about protons and neutrons while they poured over data sheets counted as “socializing.” But Bruce had asked to not be disturbed when practicing his meditation techniques as they seemed to be helping his control. Even if he had been available, Tony didn’t think Bruce was any more likely to know Steve’s habits than Tony was, unless Natasha had told him something.

Now there was a hook-up waiting to happen, Tony was sure, with the whole opposites attracting. Not like him and Steve. Sure they had their differences, and plenty of them. But when it came down to it, they were equally stubborn and pig-headed and there was no chance of anything ever happening.

Wait, why am I even thinking about that? Just because I flirted with him doesn’t mean I actually flirted with him. It was a joke. A stupid, thoughtless joke…..right?

Tony’s forehead thunked against the wall of the elevator.

“Destination, sir?” Jarvis asked again, his tone edging on concerned.

“If I was a self-righteous prick with a hero complex, where would I go to let off steam?” Tony mumbled.

“Is that a rhetorical question, sir?” said Jarvis, the sarcasm subprogram kicking into high gear.

Tony glared in the general direction of Jarvis’s main camera. After several beats, he sighed and turned around to slump against the wall. Okay, it was true, Tony could definitely be a self-righteous prick sometimes, he knew. And flying the nuke into the wormhole to save Manhattan had certainly kicked his hero complex up about 10 notches from its already high peak. See, he and the Cap were just too similar. Never gonna happen. Nope. No way.

But it would be fun, some part of Tony’s not-so-subconscious threw out there.

Before he could push the thought away, Tony remembered how it felt to be pressed up close to Steve’s warm body, feeling the strength emanating from him and he wondered what it would be like to be wrapped up in such strong arms.

It was rare for Tony to take a male lover, but when he did, they tended to be heavily muscled and dim-witted. Cap had the type of physique that could make Tony weak in the knees, but he was far from the thick-skulled gym rats that were good for a weekend of sweaty sex but not much else. Cap probably dated. Well, not lately. None of the members of the newly conceived “Avengers” seemed to be putting themselves out into the dating world. Clint probably spent the most time away from the tower, but it was possible he was just hiding in the vents spying on them.

In the seconds it took for Tony to mull this over, an idea occurred to him.

“JARVIS,” he said, lifting his forehead off the wall, “where is the gym?” He knew there was one - he had approved the remodelling to create it and been ordered to attend training sessions that he’d blown off. It had to be in the building somewhere.

“Which one?” came the automated reply.

Okay, more than one. That made sense considering how many different types of fighters they had on the team.

“Uh.” Tony pondered a moment. He settled on: “I guess whichever one I’ve supposed to have been going to for team meetings.”

“The Avengers training gym is on floor 26, section A.”

Tony nodded. “Let’s do it.”

The elevator began to move.


	4. He never actually says "I'm sorry."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony apologizes for his mistake. But will Steve accept it?

The main gym was set up like a Parkour obstacle course. There were structures to mimic buildings, cars, and fencing that could be climbed or jumped over. There were also several practice dummies that had to be deactivated by hitting any of its tiny targets with a certain amount of force, or a combined force over multiple targets. Clint would shoot the targets with an arrow, Steve would punch one or hit it with his shield, and Nat would strategically strike multiple areas with her only slightly more than normal-human strength. The practice room was a fair approximation of what the Avengers might face in a normal combat situation.

Steve was practicing backflipping over a 7ft tall fence when he heard the doors on the far side of the room crash open. He stuck his landing (he’d had a bad habit of over-rotating, which could land him on his ass) and turned to see who had come to join him. He felt a jolt of - well, he wasn’t sure what - when he saw Tony jogging across the room, picking the flattest route through the acrobatic maze. He was slightly out of breath when he reached Steve.

“What do you want, Tony?” Steve said tiredly. He wasn’t interested in playing Tony’s games anymore.

“Well,” Tony started, taking a steading breath, “first off, I would like to know why JARVIS has been instructed to not reveal your location to another member of the team. That doesn’t seem right. Now, does it? I mean, I could have needed to find you right away; it could have been important. But, for -”

Steve cut him off by raising a hand. “Well, since it’s not important, let me stop you there. And JARVIS is your creation. If it’s acting strangely, it’s because of something you did. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned his attention back to the fence.

“Note taken,” said Tony, trying to step between Steve and the structure. “Note taken, okay? But, um, it actually is kind of important.”

“Only kind of?” Steve let his irritation show in his voice with full force. “Then maybe you should call a press conference. I’ll read about in the morning paper.”

Steve coiled himself to jump but Tony put a hand on his shoulder.

“I was out of line,” he blurted out. “I’ve been testing the boundaries between us, and I finally crossed them.” He kept his eyes steady on Steve, but Steve wouldn’t look at him. “I shouldn’t have said what or said, or did what I did. It was inappropriate and it won’t happen again.”

As far as apologies went, it was probably the best one Tony had ever given, and Steve believed that it was sincere. But that actually made him even more mad.

So it had been nothing but a joke. He didn’t mean a goddamn word of it.

Steve closed his eyes and breathed in as hard as he could. Then he knocked Tony’s hand off his shoulder, turned on his heel, and stalked to a side door without saying a word.

Damn him for this. Damn him for letting me think - even for a second! - that he…. Damn him!

Steve slammed the locker room door shut behind him and headed towards the shelves of towels by the showers. Just as he’d buried his sweaty, shaking, reddened face into a soft Stark Enterprises towel, he heard the door open again. He let out an exasperated growl and turned to glare daggers at the brunette cyborg standing anxiously in the doorway.

“What, Tony?” Steve’s authoritative voice echoed around the small, tiled room. “What more do you need to say?” He chucked the towel into a bin against the wall. “I get it. Okay? You were hassling me. You’re always hassling me. If you had an honest conversation with someone they’d probably die of shock!”

“Hey, that's not fare.” Tony found his confidence again and walked further into the room. “Don’t act like you know me just because you read my SHIELD file and that article from People Magazine. Okay? I have friends. I have people I’m close to.”

“Like Pepper?” Steve knew it was a low-blow, but his blood was pulsing in his ears and he needed to make Tony leave.

Tony’s tirade seemed to be squashed. His mouth clamped shut, his shoulders slouched, and his eyes dropped to the floor. Steve’s stomach dropped, too, and a chill spread through him, shifting his anger aside.

Steve deflated. He slumped against the wall and shook his head at the floor.

Rubbing his eyes, he said, “I get it. Okay? You don’t have to apologize anymore. It’s done.” He glanced up to see Tony looking at him with sad eyes. “Let’s just forget it. Move on. Focus on building this team.”

Tony pursed his lips. “The team,” he echoed. “Right.” He sniffed and shook himself back to his typical, arrogant stance. He gave a curt nod. “Yes. You’re right,” he quipped. “The team comes first.” With a hint of a final glance in Steve’s direction, Tony turned and walked out with his head held a little too high.

Steve decided not to read into it. Tony was right about one thing - Steve really didn’t know him. For the sake of the team he would need to keep trying, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. He could use some time away from the whirlwind of Tony Stark to get his head (and his hormones) back on track.


End file.
